Prophecy of Blood
by Gabriel Seraph
Summary: The CBI team discovers the corpse of a girl in the desert, and realize that the girl had actual bird wings on her back. This leads them to the secret lab known as the School, where there are more children like the dead girl - and any of the whitecoats could have killed her to try and keep the School secure. Part 1 of the Red Reality Trilogy. Minor Fax moments, some violence.
1. Chapter 1

AN: This is my first crossover story. Now I will be altering not one canon, but two, as I see fit to tell my tale. In this case, I will be taking some very major artistic license with one of the fictional sources of this story.

I am not Dan Brown, so I have no problem saying, any and all errors made in the story are my own.

Enjoy.

Prophecy of Blood

Chapter 1

Sable Vista, California

May 15, 2020

Patrick Jane emerged from his Citroen sedan and was instantly met with a wall of 100-degree heat. However, in spite of his rumpled blue pinstripes and brown leather shoes (worn in complete disregard of conventional dress sense), he felt no discomfort in the desert sun - or any other extreme climate, really, which was a good thing because he had to visit pretty much every region of California at least once a month on some case. He walked up to the corpse of the day, which according to Lisbon was that of a Jane Doe. Although the body was already covered up by a silver blanket, Jane could still see dirty-blond hair fanning out over the sand, as well as some seriously ugly bloodstains. "Mid-to-late teens, perhaps," said Jane.

Lisbon, having long since given up wondering how he did it, merely nodded. "She was found by these two," she said, gesturing to a pair of people, a man and woman dressed in similar tie-dyes and fringed leather vests like the most stereotypical sixties flower children ever. "New Age types, probably out for some kind of vision quest."

Jane looked askance at the New Age types in question. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Shouldn't they be in Sedona for that sort of thing?"

"Maybe they're on a pilgrimage," suggested Rigsby.

"I don't think so," said Jane. He turned and walked over to them.

"Uh, Jane, hold up," said Rigsby. "There's something..." his voice trailed off as Jane resolutely ignored him.

Jane approached the hippies and introduced himself. They in turn introduced themselves, calling themselves Bird and Saoirse. "Interesting names," said Jane. "Irish, I presume?" he asked Saoirse, who nodded delightedly. He then turned to Bird and sniffed him surreptitiously. "Quick, tell me," he said, "how did you vote on Proposition 19?"

"No, of course," Bird blurted out before he could stop himself.

Saoirse groaned and glared at her counterpart. "Way to blow our cover, Birdbrain," she grumbled, shedding her hippie gear to reveal Daisy Dukes and a white t-shirt underneath.

"Don't call me that," Bird grumbled back, revealing his real clothes, which almost looked like he was ready for a hike - aside from the beach-type thongs he continued to wear as part of his hippie appearance.

"Ah, and the disguise comes off," said Jane. "Obviously. You, Bird, could have done with forgetting to bathe for a couple of days in order to get the smell down pat. So tell me, who are you really?"

"Marty Bird and Sara Mensanja," said the man, producing a business card. "_Los Angeles Times_ reporters. We were really on the way to Sedona, ya know."

"We were gonna blend in with some of the locals," said Sara, "so we could do a piece on the hooey of all that vortex energy crap. Pretend we'd been on a spiritual journey from the big city."

"Well, I don't know if you'd call what we found 'spiritual,'" remarked Marty. "That poor girl, she just crawled up to us, said something weird, and died in our arms. No lie."

Jane blinked. "What did she say?"

Marty tapped his head in thought. "I think she said, 'close to the scar,' or something. Didn't make much sense."

"Really?" Sara frowned. "I could've sworn she said, 'close down the school.' Either way, it doesn't make any sense at all, really."

"Jane?" Lisbon walked up to him and beckoned him over. "Come over here a sec, there was something you would've wanted to see."

Jane followed Lisbon back to the corpse, which the coroner was about to load into a body bag. "Could you show Jane the wounds, please?" Lisbon asked, and the coroner pulled up the back of the girl's shirt, revealing a pair of ugly, long, deep slashes to either side of her spine. Jagged shreds of bone and skin hung at random intervals from the sides of the wounds.

Except the skin wasn't skin at all. On closer examination, Jane realized it was really...

"...feathers," he breathed.

Rigsby turned to Cho, who had just finished speaking with the local police. "I knew he'd see it, too," he said, almost triumphantly.

Lisbon nodded numbly, thumbing the cross she kept on her necklace unconsciously as she did so.

Jane wasn't one to invoke celestial beings or phenomena, not even lightly, but as he stared into space and processed the anomaly he'd just seen, he whispered to himself, "What in heaven's name is this?"

* * *

Good so far? R&R please!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After seeing the tattered remnants of feathers on the Jane Doe's body, Jane was so stunned that he silently retreated to his car, spun it around with screeching tires, and tore back into town, stopping at the diner he'd spotted on the way in. Luckily, it was one of those diners that served breakfast at all hours of the day and night, so even though it was well past noon he was able to order his favorite comfort food and litmus test of a good eatery - eggs. Resolutely ignoring the buzz of his iPhone in his pocket as Lisbon continuously tried to get in contact with him, Jane stared out the window, at a sky so heavily sunlit it almost appeared white instead of the usual blue.

As he stared, a dark, shadowy form flitted past, barely visible until Jane turned to follow its path. The shadow resolved itself into a human figure, a teenage boy, maybe sixteen judging from his height. Even though it was a hot summer day in the desert, the boy nevertheless wore all black - hoodie, jeans, sneakers. He even wore his black hair very long, long enough to mostly hide his face.

Jane thought about what he looked like when he was that age. _Just about the same, if I remember correctly._ He'd finally run away from his father so his observational abilities would no longer be exploited for profit. A couple of years later, when he'd turned eighteen, he'd finally started working as a waiter to fund his college education before turning to his old career as a celebrity psychic.

The black-haired boy looked around the diner and, in the absence of any other place to sit, planted himself in the seat directly opposite Jane. He looked at the boy and said, "Hello there. Who are you?"

No response. The boy simply hung his head, gazed down at his own feet.

"What's your name?" Jane asked. "No, no, wait, let me guess. You kinda strike me as a James. Or perhaps a Jeffrey. Oh no, maybe...Nicholas?" The boy blinked twice. "Nicholas," said Patrick. "That's what I thought. Can I call you Nick?" Two more blinks. "Good. Good. My name is Patrick Jane. I work for the CBI. I catch killers."

"Killers?" Nick asked, softly. "Who's dead?"

The waitress came by with Jane's order of eggs, and took notice of Nick for the first time. "Oh!" she gasped. "When did you come in, hon? Would you like something to eat?"

"What's good here?"

Jane took his plate of eggs and gestured to it. "Eggs are always a great option."

Nick twitched slightly, as if the suggestion disturbed him. But then he said, "Beggars can't be choosers, I guess. What he's having, please."

As the waitress walked back to the kitchen with Nick's order, he produced a pencil from his pocket, took a napkin from the holder at the head of the table, and started drawing. Jane remained silent while Nick sketched his picture on the napkin, taking his time to get every detail right. Five minutes later, when his plate arrived, he pushed the napkin aside and pocketed the pencil, then poured ketchup on the eggs and started downing them at the accelerated speed so common to perpetually hungry teenage boys.

Jane reached forward and took a look at the drawing. It was, to be perfectly blunt, very disturbing. Most of the drawing was taken up by the image of a bird, apparently lying on its back, its beak stuck open, its wings torn off and splayed out to either side, with a graphite-gray representation of blood pooling around the obviously dead body. Underneath the dead bird was a short sentence: "The birds are not working."

Jane looked up at Nick, who by now had finished his entire plate of eggs in less than a minute, while Jane's plate was still half-full. "Are you okay, Nick?" He held up the napkin sketch. "Do you know anything about the girl who was killed last night?"

No response.

Trying a different tack, Jane told Nick, "Look at me." Nick brushed his hair out of his eyes, revealing a pair that were so dark brown as to be nearly as black as his hair. Jane looked into them and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nick's eyes weren't bloodshot, nor were his pupils fixed in any position that would suggest drug use of any kind.

"Do you know the dead girl in any way?" Jane asked again.

Nick blinked once. Then he whispered, "The birds are not working."

"'The birds are not working,'" Jane repeated. "What does that mean, exactly? What does it have to do with the dead girl?"

Nick froze. "Dead?" he asked, as if that word had just sunk into his consciousness for the first time. "Who's dead? Not...not Max?"

"Max?" Jane asked. "Is that the girl's name?"

"Jane?" Lisbon had just walked in. "Why haven't you been answering my texts? I've been trying to - oh, good, you found him." She nodded to Nick, who bristled visibly at the sight of her.

"I wouldn't say that," said Jane. "I would say he found me, not the other way around."

"Either way, it's a good thing you did," said Lisbon. "This is Nicholas Batchelder. His father reported him missing this morning, said he might know something about our vic." She pulled out her phone. "I sent you his picture," she said, opening said picture on the phone's screen. "If you hadn't been ignoring me you would've seen that - hey, hey, Nick, where are you going?"

Nick had just gotten up and torn off like a scared bunny, disappearing around the corner exactly the way he'd come. Lisbon ran after him, as did Patrick, who first left behind some cash on the table to pay for his and Nick's meals. But they were unable to catch up to him, as he was an incredibly fast runner. However, he stopped after three blocks and waited until Lisbon and Jane were close enough to hear him say, "That man is not my father. He's a freakin' _murderer!_" With that, Nick took off again, speeding away like a boy possessed.

Jane looked at Lisbon, who was panting heavily from the run. "Is it a bad time to show you his drawing?" he asked, handing Lisbon the napkin with the dead bird picture.

She answered with a very loud dry heave.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: This chapter contains some moderately graphic violence including self-harm. Reader discretion advised.

Chapter 3

Nick stopped in an ugly, dingy back alley, the kind with limited sunlight even at high noon, satisfied that he had eluded the police at last. Winded, he collapsed against the side of a Dumpster, the cold metal leeching his body heat from him. His spine shivered, and as he shifted position to get more comfortable, he allowed the iridescent black wings he kept concealed under his clothes to furl out slightly in order to cool off. He then started rubbing his wings against the metal, shuddering as he thought of the way Max would rub his wings after a strong workout.

"Is it possible to Kaepernick with wings?" Max would ask him, and he would awkwardly attempt to flex one wing like he would do with his arm, and kiss it. He would fail miserably every time, and he and Max would be pounding the floor as they laughed their heads off.

"But if she's dead..." Nick whispered to himself, but then he stopped short as a door opened somewhere down the alley. He immediately retracted his wings back through the slits in his t-shirt and hoodie, and folded his tall but slim frame into the corner where the Dumpster met the wall. Dirty, but effective as he was now all but invisible in the shadows.

As soon as he was sure he was alone again, Nick looked inside the Dumpster, and found a large, dark green champagne bottle lying on top of the trash heap. _Dom Perignon_, he thought. _Must be the local drug dealer's drink of choice. Nobody else could possibly afford that, neighborhood like this_. The bottle was empty, but Nick didn't care. Empty was better.

Nick smashed the bottle against the side of the Dumpster, then grabbed one of the shards lying on the ground. He then spat onto the shard, wiped it carefully on the napkin he had palmed at the diner, threw the napkin away, and then introduced the sharp edge of the glass to the skin on his left arm.

Ruby-red blood emerged slowly from the inch-long gash he made on his arm. It was located exactly halfway between a pair of scars of identical length, each one the site of a previous cutting. He gasped raggedly as the skin broke, feeling so painful it almost crossed the threshold into pleasure.

Almost. But not quite.

He cut his arm in another spot, again between two already-existing scars, and his nerves twisted in response. Tears sprang from his eyes, born not only of the physical pain but of the emotional variety as well. _She can't be dead_, Nick thought to himself. _I can't accept this. I just can't._ A third cut and he finally achieved the desired effect. His body numbed as all sense of touch slowly faded into a dull ache in the back of his brain.

He then lapped up the blood from each of his cuts, ignoring the slightly acidic tang, and spat onto the wall. Blood mixed with saliva formed a sticky patch, and he stuck his fingers into the liquid and traced a shape on the wall. Once again, it was a bird with its wings brutally torn off.

"Hey!" yelled a voice behind him. Nick turned around and saw a tall guy, probably Latino, in a white wife beater and low-rise blue jeans like a gangsta rapper. "Whatcha doin' here, _ese,_ huh?" the Latino asked. "I think you in the wrong territory today, ya know what I mean?"

Nick blinked, not wanting to speak in case he said the wrong thing.

"Hey, I'm talking to you," the guy said. "Normally, when I talk to someone, I expect 'em to talk back." Still no answer from Nick. The guy pulled a small, shiny dagger from his belt loop. "You holdin' or something, huh?" The guy pointed his dagger at him. "You got somethin' I would want?"

Nick eyeballed the dagger warily. "I don't have anything. You don't wanna make trouble with me. It's not worth it."

The guy sneered at him. "I decide what's worth it! You got me?" He then thrust his dagger forward, straight into the very bottom of Nick's chest.

But as soon as he pulled the dagger out, Nick fingered the spot where he'd been stabbed, and his finger came up clean. There was no injury there of any kind. "Didn't your mother teach you good manners?" he asked, in a soft yet deeply sarcastic voice.

The Latino dropped his dagger in sheer fright, and backed against the opposite wall of the alley. "_¡María santísima!_" he cried. "What the hell are you?"

He was answered with a dark, angry glare directed at his eyes. "My name is Fang," Nick said. "And I'm outta here." He ran down the alley, and as soon as he had enough room to do so he spread his enormous black wings and flew upwards, well out of eyesight of anyone on the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jane looked around the house where he and Lisbon were speaking to Nick Batchelder's father, a bespectacled blond man who appeared very devastated that they had found his missing son only to lose him again.

"We're sorry about this whole situation, Mr. Batchelder," said Lisbon.

"Please, call me Jeb," the man said, in a light southern accent. "I should've known this sort of thing was going to happen sooner or later. Nick's not really been the same since his mother died." Jane took this moment to scan the three pictures on the mantelpiece. Five different people were represented in them - Jeb himself, a dark-haired woman who appeared vaguely Latina, a young Nick, with much shorter black hair, and two blond children. One was a boy, barely beyond infancy. The other was closer to Nick's age, maybe a little older, and looked vaguely familiar to Jane.

"How so?" Lisbon asked.

Jeb sighed. "Well, my wife always had this really bad anemia, and combined with depression she didn't really eat right, and she eventually died from her iron deficiency. Then little Ari died of pneumonia. He and Nick were really close, they were." He swallowed. "Ever since then, my boy's been really unhappy all the time, wearing all black like one of those goths you see on TV." He then looked around, like someone who didn't want to be eavesdropped on. "And he cut himself, too. I found my old hunting knife in his room one day, with pretty fresh bloodstains. I know it wasn't from me, I hadn't used it in years."

"Anything about birds ever come up?" Lisbon asked.

Jeb blinked. "Birds?" He blinked again, twice. "No. Why do you ask?"

"He's a liar," Jane blurted out.

Lisbon glared at Jane. Jeb merely asked, "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me," said Jane. "Hunting knife? Really? You don't strike me as the hunting type, not at all. I would expect a hunter to have animal skins and heads all over his living room. You clearly don't," he added, gesturing around the room, which was decorated with prototypical middle-America plainness. Family photos on the mantelpiece, outdated thirty-year-old wallpaper, a couple of ceramic wall tiles with little platitudes like "Live, Laugh, Love" printed on them. "So what else are you lying about, huh?"

Lisbon shook her head in exasperation. "I apologize, Jeb. Mr. Jane has never quite managed to get around his...blunt nature."

Jeb nodded understandingly. "I get it. Anyone who ever visits here always assumes I'm trying to hide something, just 'cause it's so plain. I tell you this, one of my friends, his little daughter once asked me if I was a serial killer! Kids these days."

While Lisbon laughed politely, Jane resumed staring at the family photos. He finally realized where he'd seen the blonde girl before. He then turned to Lisbon and asked, "Shouldn't we ask him about the dead girl?"

"What dead girl?" asked Jeb.

Lisbon sighed, then pulled out the photo of the formerly winged corpse. Jeb took a split-second look at it, then started breaking down and crying. "Oh no," he sobbed quietly. "Not Max. Not my Max." He looked back up at Lisbon. "She's been missing since yesterday. I reported her but the sheriff said I have to wait 48 hours, and now she's...Where did you find her?"

"Off the highway," said Lisbon. "Campers found her. Said she was really badly cut up, and she said something about, 'Close down the School.' Tell me that means something to you."

Jeb took off his glasses so he could wipe his tears. "The School? N-n-no. I don't get it either."

"That's okay," Lisbon said consolingly. "You're not the first. We're very sorry for your loss, sir."

"Excuse me," Jeb said, standing up. "I have to make a phone call." He got up and left the room, still shaking with sobs.

Lisbon glared at Jane once again. "Really?"

Jane looked down at the floor, and unfolded the dead bird drawing once again. "To be honest, I can't really tell if he's lying or not. It's like he's trained himself to only show the body language and emotions he wants us to see."

"So you were trying to smoke the truth out of him?"

"Sort of, yes," said Jane.

Another head-shake from Lisbon. "And did you get any results?"

"He's definitely not as vanilla as he wants us to believe," said Jane. "We can only hope it's a very minor secret he wants to keep. Like, some kind of kinky fetish."

"Why do I get the feeling it's gonna be something much worse?" wondered Lisbon.

Jane's eyes twinkled a bit. "Because it usually is."

Lisbon stared at the drawing that Patrick was holding out. "Oh God, could you please put that sheepdip away?" she moaned. "And whatever you do, don't show that to Jeb. He's distressed enough as it is."

"So it would seem," said Jane. "Already I'm starting to wonder if we're not crossing swords with a violent sociopath."

"Please," grumbled Lisbon. "Do us a favor and don't try to tempt fate."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Back at the CBI office in Sacramento, Jane lay back on his famous couch, a brand-new black one he'd bought from IKEA after the original brown leather one had finally fallen apart from more than ten years of heavy use. He stared up at the dead-bird drawing again, holding it up to the light as if he could possibly see something else etched into it. Lisbon looked askance at him as he continuously rotated the napkin this way and that.

"Could you please stop looking at that...thing?" Lisbon asked brusquely. "It's not gonna tell you anything you haven't already figured out before, and it'll probably keep you up at night besides."

"I barely sleep anyway," Jane reminded her.

Van Pelt turned around and chimed in, "She's right, Patrick. Frankly, we're all disturbed that you keep playing with that picture."

Jane snorted. "Meh. I'm not playing with it. _This_ is playing with it." He rolled it up into a ball and tossed it in Rigsby's general direction. Rigsby deliberately ducked out of the way, while Cho grabbed it and chucked it straight into the trash can. "Now that's not very polite, is it?" Jane asked, going over to retrieve the drawing from the trash. Lisbon actually made a "gag-me-with-a-spoon" gesture behind his back, earning sympathetic nods from Cho and Rigsby.

"Seriously," Lisbon asked, "why the hell do you keep looking at it?"

"Because Nick seems too...I don't know...normal to be drawing things like this," Jane said. "He's clearly been through some kind of trauma, and it's affected him...very substantially."

Lisbon scoffed. "Or, he could be our killer, for all you know."

"Please don't jump to conclusions, Lisbon," said Jane. "Not very becoming of you, is it?"

Another scoff from Lisbon. "Oh, like you've never done that before!"

"I know I'm right about Nick," said Jane. "If that is, in fact, his real name. I don't know about you, but I highly doubt Jeb Batchelder is really those kids' father. Unless he's got wings that we haven't seen...and maybe Nick has wings too, for all I know."

Rigsby asked, "You don't even wonder where the wings came from?"

Jane waved his hand dismissively. "Not really." He got up, folded the drawing up neatly in his pocket, and left the building to go home, leaving his friends staring at him in complete bewilderment.

* * *

10:25pm. The basement window at Jeb Batchelder's house was opened from outside as a tall boy with black hair slid through and, using his wings to slow his descent, made his way down to the floor. He crossed over to the nearby closet and shook awake the young black girl lying in a hammock just one foot off the floor.

"F-Fang?" the girl asked sleepily. "What is it?"

Fang removed a laptop from his backpack and handed it to the girl. "I need to find someone, Nudge. His name's Patrick Jane. I'm pretty sure he can help us."

Despite her drowsiness, Nudge managed to cock her eyebrow at Fang to go along with a sarcastic, "Sure he can. Maybe he can fix Iggy's eyes while he's at it, too."

"Just do it, please," Fang said raspily. Nudge took the laptop and her fingers flew across the keys. The sound was enough to wake up the little blond girl sleeping directly over their heads. "Hi, Fang," she said sweetly.

"Hi, Angel," Fang responded, just as Nudge stopped searching on the computer. "Got it," she said. "Here's his address." She handed Fang back his laptop, and he spent all of two seconds scanning the screen before closing it and returning it to his backpack, then turning around to leave. _For Max_, he thought.

"Oh no," Angel breathed all of a sudden, then started to cry as she realized what she had just picked up on. Fang slapped himself in the face. _Why didn't I keep my thoughts to myself?_ he groaned internally as he flew up to the window, left the basement, and took off flying north at top speed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

At seven o'clock on the morning of May 16, Jane woke up from a three-hour sleep session - his longest in five years - to hear a strange rattling sound against the window of the apartment where he lived. Immediately fearing the worst, he grabbed the baseball bat he kept under the bed and nervously approached the door. Mentally thanking himself for purchasing blackout curtains, he tentatively opened the door and then stood aside as a familiar face filed in. "Nick Batchelder," said Jane. "As I live and breathe. Where've you been?"

"Never mind that," whispered the boy, as he glanced around the room nervously. "Patrick - uh, Mr. Jane - I really need your help. That man who says he's my dad, he's not. If you haven't figured that out yet-"

"Just Patrick, please," said Jane. "And don't worry, Nick. I already did figure that out." However, inside Jane was starting to wonder if this was actually the case. Perhaps he'd been prejudiced by the boy's angry declaration that Jeb was a "freakin' murderer." However, he felt no need to go against any delusions he happened to be suffering.

"My name's not Nick," said the boy. "And like I said, my so-called dad, he's a liar and a murderer. He promised to set us free, and he's keeping us all locked in his basement. I bet he killed Max for escaping."

Jane held up his hands. "Wait a second. 'Us?' How many of 'you' are there, exactly?"

"Six." The boy paused. "Well, there's actually seven, but the seventh was kind of a special case. He was always getting pampered by the whitecoats, 'cause they just cloned him two months ago or whatever."

"Cloned him?" Jane was extremely shocked by this latest development. "Where exactly are you seven from?"

The boy changed the subject. "Look, I'm sorry to be so rude, but I am extremely freaking hungry. Flying here from Sable Flats really sapped all my energy. I need fuel. Like, yesterday."

Jane eyeballed the boy as he paced up and down the cramped apartment like a tiger in a cage. "Sure doesn't look that way, the way you're moving around."

"Well, do you wanna wait until I crash and burn before you find out? 'Cause I sure don't."

"Fine," Jane said, digging out his bread, butter, and toaster. No sooner had the toast been buttered than Nick inhaled it the way he'd inhaled the eggs in the diner the day before. "Need more?" asked Jane, who then started him on four more slices in two sittings. As soon as the final piece was eaten, Jane asked, "Could you tell me your name first? Your real name?"

"They never gave one to me, or any of us, really," the boy said. "So I picked one out myself. Fang."

Jane nodded. "Fang. Nice name. Very, um, animalistic. Sure beats Nick. Suits you much better."

"Look, I can't stress this enough," said Fang. "I can't let anyone else find out about this."

"That'll be very hard for me to do," said Jane. "I'm only a consultant for the CBI. It's my colleague Teresa Lisbon you'll need to talk to if you really need help."

Fang sighed. "Okay, but I absolutely cannot, cannot, cannot be sent back to Sable Flats. Then Jeb'll probably send me back to that awful lab and then we'll never be able to fix this. I'm sorry if I'm losing you with this, but this whole situation is really tough to explain."

"Just get through as much as you can on the car ride," said Jane, opening the door and leading Nick outside. "And don't worry. Lisbon is much more malleable than she looks. She's always a sucker for super-desperate people. When they aren't trying to gun down the office, that is."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Jane walked into the office with Fang in tow, and grabbed the boy a chair while he sat on his usual couch. Van Pelt glanced at them and said, "Hey there, Jane. Who's your, uh, friend?"

"This is Nick," Jane said, deciding to use his fake name because somehow, he got the impression that Lisbon would be much more easily convinced to help him that way. "He's offered to help us on the Max Batchelder case."

Van Pelt nodded, but then stopped short as she realized something. "Hang on. Aren't you-"

Jane preemptively held up a finger to shush her. "Don't say it out loud," he said. "We don't wanna have him taken away from us just yet, do we?"

"Well, if he's gonna be useful...I suppose you could be right," Van Pelt muttered. "As you so often are." She turned away, but then did a double take. "Wait, does that mean he's the one who drew that awful dead bird thing you kept-" She clapped her hands over her mouth, realizing she had just metaphorically inserted her foot deep into said orifice and was now, equally metaphorically, choking on her own femur.

Fang groaned. "Dude, forget this," he said, getting up and turning to leave. "If you're just gonna treat me like the sideshow freak I am, I might as well-" At this point, he accidentally walked into Lisbon, almost making her drop her coffee in her surprise.

"Oh," Lisbon said in a high voice. "Nick. How nice to see you." She turned to Jane, a look of suspicion dawning on her face. "I suppose he came to you for help? Of course he did. Everyone gravitates to you, Jane, every time."

Fang backed away, looking extremely nervous. "Please," he said, looking down at his feet. "I need your help. I need you to put Jeb away for what he did. What he plans to do."

"What exactly did he do?" Lisbon asked.

"I'm only going to tell Mr. Jane," Fang said, almost wheedling by now. "He's really understanding."

Lisbon nodded. "Uh-huh. And you don't want Mr. Jane telling us? Is that it?"

Jane scoffed. "Of course I'd tell you. Who do you think I am?"

"Yeah, you'd tell us only after you've broken every damn law in the state to get the killer to confess," Van Pelt said. "We've worked with you for, what, fifteen years? Trust me, Jane, we all know very well how you operate."

"For once," Jane said, leading Fang into the interview room, "why don't you trust me?" He closed the door and turned to Fang, saying, "I think that worked just fine. Were you only pretending to be afraid of Lisbon back there, or was that real?"

Fang smiled. "Max always said I had split personalities," he said.

"Good," said Jane. "Let's begin. How did Jeb kill Max?"

* * *

An hour later, Jane and Fang emerged from the room and resumed sitting in the office. Lisbon called Jane aside and, once the door to her office was closed, asked him, "Well?"

"Jeb didn't kill Max," said Jane. "At least not directly. There's someone else involved here, I'm sure of it. Someone not afraid to get their hands dirty."

"Well, who is it?" asked Lisbon.

"Nick wouldn't say," Jane said. "But he did give me a clue of sorts." He handed Lisbon a cut-out portion of an ordinary street map of the Mojave Desert area, with a few annotations in pen about ten miles north of Sable Vista, in a place seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, with no roads to or from this position anywhere within a five-mile radius. This otherwise empty spot on the map was marked "The School."

Lisbon frowned. "There's that 'School' again. What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Jane smiled. "Let's go over there and find out, shall we? I'll drive."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Up there," said Fang, pointing to a nearby exit just outside of Tehachapi. "Take a left."

"Are you sure?" Lisbon asked. "We're nowhere near Sable Vista yet."

Fang frowned. "If we go this way, we'll be able to get into a secret entrance to the School," he said. "It's how Jeb got us out of there in the first place."

"I'm sure he knows what he's doing," Jane said, changing lanes and taking the exit Fang indicated.

Another hour or so of driving and Fang told him to stop the car on the side of the road. "There's no road to the secret entrance, and I don't exactly think this'll be able to handle the desert sand." They stepped out of the car and into yet another wall of blazing desert heat. Fang pulled his hood over his head. "So nobody can see me on camera," he said. "Otherwise I wouldn't do it, 'cause it's way too hot for that today."

"What about us?" Lisbon asked. "We don't have hoods, or anything else to cover our heads with. Jane, I don't like this. Let's get out of here."

"It's just a chance we'll have to take," Fang insisted. "Come on, the sooner we get into the place the better."

They spent another hour walking across the wide, sand-covered, rocky terrain. Soon they came up to a small, round depression in the side of a hill. Jane tapped his toe on the ground and heard the distinctive ping of metal underfoot. Retracting his hands into his sleeves, Fang reached down and pulled a hidden handle to open the secret entrance.

"Just trying not to leave fingerprints?" Jane asked.

Fang shook his head. "Would you touch hot metal with your bare hands? I don't think so." He lowered himself into the hole, followed by Lisbon and Jane. As the hatch closed, fluorescent lights buzzed into life to illuminate a passageway, at the end of which was a massive cube-shaped chamber, about five stories high, with portions of the opposite wall carved out to show a long, twisted staircase. Inside the chamber were cages upon cages, all empty, some with very noticeable bloodstains all over them.

The three climbed the staircase and soon emerged into another long, harshly lit passageway, this one lined with doors every ten meters. On the right was a full pane of glass, overlooking a courtyard lined with trees. It reminded Jane of a Southern California college campus - Fremont College, he believed it was called - he'd visited while investigating a chemical attack with the CBI three years earlier. Some chemical it had been, too. A psychotrope that caused people's inhibitions and brain functions to break down. He wondered if perhaps this place was involved in any similar endeavors. It certainly didn't look like it was in the middle of the desert from the way everything was laid out.

"Jane?" Lisbon called, whistling for his attention. Jane turned and saw Fang pressing the numeric keypads on door after door, to no avail.

"How do you know what the code is?" Jane asked.

"I don't," said Fang. "I'm just going off this list of numbers. Jeb gave it to me when we left. 'Just in case,' he said. Here, read me off some numbers."

Jane took the list and started at the numbers Fang pointed to. "1881?" No good. "6045?" Still no good. "5124?" Finally, pay dirt. The door popped open, and Fang led the adults into the room beyond. Inside was a bed on which a tall blond boy, about Fang's age, lay quietly.

Fang shook him awake. "Dylan?" he whispered. "It's me. Come on, we gotta get you out of here."

"Fang?" Dylan asked blearily as he woke up. "Why are you here? How'd you get in here? I'd get outta here, it's not safe. They've been looking for you for days now, they said you'd be here after Max was killed."

"Do you know who killed Max, Dylan?" asked Jane.

"Who is this guy?" asked Dylan.

But before Fang could answer, alarms suddenly sounded off across the campus, and the door to Dylan's room was shut and locked automatically. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" a mechanical voice bellowed on the loudspeaker. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE OR FACE LETHAL ACTION!" To drive the point home, tiny guns sprouted out of the walls and trained their laser sights on Fang, Jane, and Lisbon, who all held up their hands in surrender. Dylan copied the gesture, even though he wasn't even being targeted.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The guns soon retracted into the walls, only to be replaced by a phalanx of armed guards who trained their own weapons against Jane, Lisbon, Fang, and Dylan. Spotting Dylan, the leader of the guards growled, "You're free to go," and he beckoned Dylan to leave the room. Dylan complied, shuddering as he passed the guards. Then the leader turned to Jane and Lisbon and yelled, "Who are you? What is your business here?"

Jane turned to Fang, who mouthed something that looked suspiciously like the word "Erasers." He then turned to the guards and said out loud, "Patrick Jane, CBI consultant. This is my colleague, Agent Teresa Lisbon. We are here investigating a murder which we believe is connected to this facility."

The guard raised his reflective visor, showing a rough face covered in scars and stubble. "In that case, where are your visitors' badges? This is private property. All visitors are required to sign in at the front gate."

"Huh," said Jane. "That's too bad. I was led to believe we could just walk in through the secret entrance. Tell me sir," he continued, after doing a quick cold read, "how are the eggs here? Are they good with ketchup?" He nodded at a tiny, almost imperceptible red stain on the guard's uniform.

"Ketchup?" the guard asked. "What is ketchup? Is that another word for blood?"

"That's what I thought," Jane said. "So you're not just guards, you're killers. It looks like you just killed very recently too, judging from the freshness of the stain."

The guard frowned. "Are you trying to reason with us? We are less human than we appear."

"And you sure don't look all that human to begin with," muttered Fang.

Dylan then took this opportunity to speak up. "Guys, seriously, they just wanted to come visit me. Can't you let them go? No harm done, right?"

The guard considered. "Well, if you say so," he said after a while. "But the boy -" here he gestured to Fang - "will have to come with us. Just a formality, nothing serious."

Jane could see from the look in Fang's eyes that this was more than a mere formality. Nevertheless, he was glad to be free to go along with Lisbon. As the guards escorted Fang down the corridor into another lab, Dylan led them back to the secret entrance.

"Hold on a second," Lisbon said just as they reached the big staircase. "Jane, what the hell are we doing? We can't just let Fang go like that. Who knows what those guards are doing to him?"

"Dylan can give us good information too, I'm sure," said Jane.

"You mean to destroy the School?" Dylan asked. "No. I can't do that. They've been nothing but good to me." He rubbed his side.

Jane took notice of this little gesture and said, "Dylan, take off your shirt for us." When Dylan did so, Jane asked him to turn around. As he did so, Jane and Lisbon could see two lines of feathers on either side of his spine. "Wings," breathed Jane. "So you're just another experiment."

"Yes," said Dylan. "Just like Fang, Iggy, Angel...and Max," he finished with a wistful tone.

"You know Max?" asked Lisbon.

"Yeah, they told me she can't wait to be my mate."

Lisbon locked eyes with Jane for a second, then pulled out her phone and showed Dylan the picture of the previous day's crime scene. "I guess you'll have to wait a lot longer than you thought," she said sadly.

"What?" Dylan took the phone and gulped as the sight of the photo registered. "But they told me just this morning she was on her way here to meet me."

"Then they lied," said Jane. "Wouldn't surprise me."

Dylan sat on the concrete floor, tears dripping from his eyes. Then he stood up and pushed past Lisbon and Jane as he started back up the passageway the way they'd come. "Come on," he said. "We're gonna get answers out of those people."

"How about freeing Fang?" Lisbon asked.

"Who cares about Fang?" grumbled Dylan. "He always hated me for no reason. Guy doesn't know how to talk to people."

"We do need all the help we can get," Jane said, pulling out the sheet of paper with Fang's list of numbers. He found the door Fang had been taken into and keyed in several combinations before finally opening the door, allowing some loud, pained screams to emanate from the soundproofed room. Lisbon drew her gun and shot the guards in the kneecaps, while Dylan and Patrick rushed forward to free Fang from the electrified chair to which he was handcuffed. One of the guards started trembling on the floor as Lisbon aimed her gun at him, and his face elongated, turned into something furry and canine. Or perhaps lupine. Either way, he didn't get to do anything else, as Lisbon turned her gun around and pistol-whipped him roughly upside the head.

"Is there some boss here we can talk to?" Lisbon asked Dylan.

"This way," Dylan said. "Roland ter Borcht. He runs the place, maybe he can help you." He led the three intruders down the hall and down to the end of an adjacent wing, to an office door marked "R. ter Borcht, Chief Geneticist." Fang got a running start and drop-kicked the door to the ground, allowing Lisbon and Jane in to see a tall, slightly overweight man sitting in a leather chair in front of a massive panoramic window illuminated by the afternoon sun to the southwest.

"Ah," said ter Borcht, in dangerously placid tones. "Fang and Dylan. I never imagined to see you working together. Now who are these other two with you? Perhaps they would like to see the wonders of our School."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Let me guess," Jane said. "German?"

"Very astute," said ter Borcht. "I have worked to hide my accent, but I resolved to never give it up completely. You should have seen me fifteen years ago. I sounded just like Arnold Schwarzenegger."

Lisbon frowned. "Mr...or is it Doctor?" The man nodded. "Dr. ter Borcht, then." After introducing herself and Jane, she continued, "We're with the CBI, and we've been told you may know something about a murder that took place in the desert about two days ago. The victim is Max Batchelder. She's the daughter of one of your employees, am I right?"

ter Borcht examined the photo on Lisbon's phone. "Yes," he said. "She is Jeb Batchelder's daughter, albeit not in the conventional sense."

"What do you mean?" asked Lisbon, mystified.

"Maybe she's his test-tube baby," said Patrick.

"As it happens, yes," said ter Borcht. "You see, this School is a genetic engineering laboratory. We have a number of experiments which we have worked on for a very long time. Among them are the seven avian-human hybrid children, of which Max is one. As are Fang and Dylan. With the exception of Dylan, Jeb took them to his house in town two years ago."

"Avian-human?" Lisbon asked.

"Birds," said Fang. "Like our wings weren't enough of a clue?"

Jane removed a feather (which he'd collected from the crime scene) from his pocket. "So what exactly happened to Max?" he asked.

"A mistake on my part," he said. "I brought in the visitors from that corporation in Los Angeles and they wanted Max for their own experiments. I told them she was not available, but they insisted. I believe they sent one of their own...how do I say this? Mercenaries? Is that the word? Yes, they sent a mercenary to collect Max, and she put up a fight, and, well...you see what happened."

"He's telling the truth," said Jane. "Do you have evidence of this mercenary killing Max?"

ter Borcht turned his computer on and pulled up a video file. Swinging the screen around to show Jane and Lisbon, he played the video, which showed a medium-height brunette woman in a tank top and tight leather pants, pulling a serrated knife from a sheath on her belt and repeatedly stabbing Max while Max punched her in the face and torso. Lisbon asked ter Borcht to freeze the video while she snapped a picture of the killer's face and sent it to headquarters.

"Thanks for your help, Doctor," said Lisbon as she shook ter Borcht's hand.

As Jane shook the doctor's hand, he asked, "Now answer me this - why are you helping us?"

"Because while I may be involved in questionable work, I do have morals," said ter Borcht. "I ensure that all our subjects are treated humanely and fairly. So does Jeb, which is why I didn't do anything to stop him when he removed the bird children, even though I disagreed with his doing so." He paused. "Jeb spoke of a Prophecy of Blood and he felt it was up to him to prevent it from coming to pass, so that meant taking the bird children out of the School."

"Prophecy of Blood," repeated Jane. "Sounds interesting. Come on, Fang, let's go. You too, Dylan."

ter Borcht smiled as they left. "The Rossum Corporation," he said. "They are the ones who sent the killer after Max. Good luck stopping them, however. I hear they have very shady history. Disappearances, unexplained murders."

"Good to know," said Patrick. "Oh and by the way, you may want to lay off the fried foods. I saw your high blood pressure medication as you closed your desk drawer. A brilliant mind such as yourself, you should take better responsibility." ter Borcht smiled, calm as ever._ He's such a liar_, Jane thought. _What he's hiding, though, I have no idea._


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"So you have the killer?" Jeb asked as Jane and Lisbon brought Fang and Dylan to his house.

"Not quite," said Lisbon. "We know who she is, however. Trouble is, she's officially been missing for five years now." She showed Jeb the picture, which now had a name attached to it. Caroline Farrell, last seen at Fremont College outside Los Angeles.

"And you're gonna look for her?" Jeb asked.

"Of course," said Jane.

Jeb sighed. "Thank God," he said. "We need to put an end to this. Hang on a second..." He tilted the freeze-frame of Caroline Farrell and looked closely at her eyes. "Her eyes look so dead," he said. "I've seen mercenaries in my time, but none of them had anything but a really hard gleam in their eyes. Here, there's nothing. She must not be in her right mind."

Lisbon blinked. "What are you saying? Is she brainwashed or something? Dr. ter Borcht did warn us that this Rossum Corporation was-"

"Rossum?" Jeb gasped. "Oh no. If Rossum's involved in this...they're trying to accelerate the prophecy. We...we have to stop them now!"

"What is this Prophecy of Blood?" asked Jane. "Surely it's just another tin-pot attempt at predicting the end of the world."

"Many shady corporations around the world take it very seriously," Jeb said. "Rossum included. They've always hinted at something that can allow them to win the war ahead, and I'm scared they may have found such a weapon."

"By brainwashing?" Lisbon asked.

"Worse," said Jeb. "Here, let me...Nudge? What is it?"

Nudge rushed up the stairs from the basement, panting. "Jeb...it's Fang. He took off out the window and flew away."

"Did he say where he was going?" Lisbon asked.

Jane scratched his chin. "Los Angeles."

"That's right," said Nudge. "How'd you know?"

"Seems that's where all the action is," Jane said. "Lisbon, let's go. LA calls!"

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
